


Let us descend into the blind world

by direpenguins



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Infidelity, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-12-04
Packaged: 2017-12-24 05:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/direpenguins/pseuds/direpenguins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stannis and Melisandre circa <i>A Clash of Kings</i>, in three parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The morning after Maester Cressen’s death, Stannis summoned the priestess to the Chamber of the Painted Table. The echoing footsteps of the page he’d sent after her had hardly died in the stairwell when she swept in, a swirl of red silk, as if she had been expecting his summons. She did not curtsy, but bowed her head, her lips curved in a faint smile. He gritted his teeth. It was his first time to speak with her alone.

“I want to know what your magic is good for,” he said. “Besides killing frail old men.”

“I did not kill him, Your Grace,” she said. “It was the maester who sought to kill me, and it was R’hllor who protected me.”

He knew that. It was Davos’s goblet that the maester had snatched up, and Davos had reported—with some reluctance, Stannis noted—that he had seen Cressen drop something into the wine before approaching the high table. Still, the sight of his old maester dying in agony at her feet had left a knot in Stannis’s stomach that had not gone away. 

A miracle, some called it; dark magic, others whispered. Selyse had fallen to her knees, weeping and praising R’hllor. All Stannis knew was what he had seen with his own eyes: Cressen had swallowed a few drops and died in moments. The priestess had drained the goblet and still lived to speak with him now.

“Just tell me what I have to do to get this god of yours on my side.”

“R’hllor is on your side,” she said. “You need only trust yourself to him.”

“Trust myself to what you tell me, you mean.”

“I only convey his words as best I can.”

“So you say, but I’ve never known a god as talkative as you.” He realized as he said it that it sounded like something of an insult. His father had told him that one should always be courteous with women, but he had never learned the trick of it. “I get plenty of words from others. You’ll need more than that if you mean to be of any use to me.”

If the priestess took offense, she gave no sign. “There is powerful magic created by the joining of opposites,” she said. “Flint and steel struck together can light a great fire. A man and a woman together can light an even greater fire.”

Stannis opened his mouth, but his retort froze in his throat. _What did she mean by that?_ In King’s Landing, he’d often heard the high septon speak of the getting of children as some great miracle, a gift from the gods—a commonplace sort of miracle, really, judging by the number of them running about the streets of Flea Bottom. Was that the magic she meant? Or something else? He stared at her, and she returned his gaze evenly.

“I have servants to light fires for me,” he said finally. “I have septas to prate at me about the blessed union of marriage. Are you a servant or a septa?”

“No, Your Grace,” she said, smiling. “I am the true god’s servant, and yours.”

 

Burning the Seven he understood. If he was meant to have sworn himself to some god, it would not do to keep the trappings of other gods. He’d never had much use for them anyway; and if people could pray at those blocks of wood they could pray just as well at the priestess’ fires. 

The whole business with the burning sword, though... He felt half a fool carrying that thing across the beach. A burning sword was no more than a conjurer’s trick; he had learned that much watching Thoros of Myr get knocked down during Robert’s tourneys. Did she think to impress him with such “magic”?

“Such rituals as these are not for _your_ benefit, Your Grace,” she said. “People follow signs and wonders, so it is necessary to show them signs and wonders.”

Not a servant or a septa, then, but a mummer putting on a show. Still, it had served its purpose.

At first he’d been hesitant to see her without Selyse present. Not that Selyse’s presence usually put him at ease, but at least it was a familiar sort of unease. Before long, however, he’d realized that it was easier to get something resembling a straight answer from the priestess without Selyse’s fervid interjections.

Of course it had not escaped his notice that the priestess was beautiful. Anyone could see as much. A man might notice that the grass beneath his feet was green and lush; that didn’t mean he felt inclined to eat it. Her beauty was an irrelevant detail, of no more use to him than the greenness of the grass, and he put it away with other irrelevant details, such as the scent of smoke and incense which lingered in a room after she left, and the infuriating way she had sometimes of smiling when she met his gaze, as if the two of them had shared some secret jest. Stannis was not a man for jests, and there were few who cared to share any with him.

 

One night he went to Selyse’s chambers. He could not say what drove him, and he almost turned right around to leave again at the sight of her bewildered expression greeting him—as if she could not even imagine what he, her husband, might be doing calling on her.

To be sure, his visit was out of turn. It had been their unspoken custom that he would come to her chambers on her name day and she would do the same on his. Her last name day had been less than two months prior, and his next one was not for four months yet. Two visits in two months was unusually bold.

Perhaps she thought that this unexpected attention was a sign of some new kindling of affection on his part. When they were done, instead of rolling over as she usually did and politely pretending to be asleep so he could leave, she attempted to make conversation.

“Melisandre says that with R’hllor’s blessing we may yet have a son.”

He did not want to talk of the priestess or think about her. He grunted something vague in response, rolled over, and did his best to look asleep. After a minute or two, Selyse did the same.

No miraculous power had revealed itself to them. Not that he had expected it. Not that it mattered. _If there was any magic in such an act,_ he thought bitterly, _then Robert must have been the greatest sorcerer the world has ever known._

 

He dreamed of his wedding night, of the awful tittering of the lady guests as they pulled his clothes off for the bedding. When he caught sight of Selyse she looked as ill at ease as he felt; at least they’d had that in common.

The corridor to the bedchamber seemed to go on forever. He knew the spectacle that waited for them at the end of it, and yet his feet could only go forward. Most of the torches had gone out, and it occurred to him after a while that the wedding guests and even Selyse had disappeared. He walked that endless dark passage alone, the walls curving around him like a cave. 

Finally, he reached the end. He could hear rhythmic thumps and moans behind the heavy wooden door. It groaned loudly against the floor as he pushed it open to reveal the bedchamber and the bed and his brother.

Robert was young and clean-shaven, with thickly muscled limbs, as unabashed in his nakedness as a boar in the woods. When he looked round and saw Stannis in the doorway, his bellows of laughter shook the bedposts. Perhaps it was mirth that flushed his face red, or perhaps it was the wine, or his interrupted exertions. Certainly it was not embarrassment. Robert was the one naked in another’s bed, and yet he seemed to think that Stannis was the one worthy of ridicule. 

The woman with Robert, pale and spread over the sheets like a wanton, was not Delena Florent. Her figure seemed to grow more solid and real, filling Stannis’s vision, even as Robert’s figure receded and grew dark and flat, although his guffaws continued to ring against the walls. She did not join in the laughter; but her red eyes met Stannis’s and her red lips curved and he knew that she knew—she understood that bitter jest as he did.

 _Your brother laughs at you,_ Melisandre’s smile said, _but it is you, not he, who belongs here._

 

“Queen Selyse tells me you have renewed your efforts to conceive a son.”

The priestess’ smile rankled on him at the best of times; after his bizarre dream of the other night, it had become almost unbearable. He clenched his teeth so hard his head began to hurt. “Queen Selyse has no business discussing that with you.”

“The Lord of Light loves an honest heart, Your Grace. Your wife holds nothing back from me.”

“The Lord of Light seems happy enough to hold things back from me,” he said, glaring at her over the carved wooden expanse of the Stormlands. “You claim that going to Storm’s End will win me Renly’s army. How?”

“First you must meet with your brother. Speak with him, face to face.”

“I won’t find him at Storm’s End. He’s marching down the Rose Road to King’s Landing.” _Though he might decide to turn east if he received word that the castle was besieged..._ “Why must I meet with him?”

“You must give him the chance to repent his sin and pledge himself to you.”

“You told me before that Renly would die. Now you say that Renly will bend the knee and join his forces to mine?”

“I did not say that, Your Grace; only that you must give him the chance.”

“He’s had his chance. Playing at being king is more important to him than doing his duty by his brother. Why should I dignify a traitor like that with an audience?”

“You will need his army to take your throne.”

“I don’t need your counsel on battle strategy.” He turned back to the table, as if it would tell him anything new. “I am well aware that I don’t have the men to take King’s Landing or to hold it. Your magic was supposed to be my path to victory, or so you claimed.”

Her hand brushed his shoulder lightly; he felt the warmth of it through layers of wool and leather. He flinched away as if he’d been burned. Seeing her sympathetic smile, he immediately cursed himself for a fool.

“The path to victory has been prepared for you,” she said gently. “I have seen it. You need only follow it to Storm’s End.”

He turned away from her again. His heart was pounding. Why was he so startled by a little touch? Had she ever touched him before? Of course not; why would she?

“Your brother has not seen you since you took up your crown,” she went on. For a moment he thought she was going to touch him again, but she only rested her hand on the table.

“I haven’t changed,” Stannis said. “And neither has he.”

“You have changed. You have come to know R’hllor’s power.”

He thought of Maester Cressen writhing on the floor of the great hall, and grimaced. “If I show Renly that burnt-up tourney sword, he might be good enough to laugh himself to death. But I doubt he would do me such a favor.”

Melisandre spoke quietly to his squire Devan, who darted out and returned with a long bundle wrapped in oiled leather.

Stannis laid it on the table and undid the wrapping. The sword shone as if it reflected a noonday sun, though they were indoors. The air shimmered around it as if it were hot off the forge. For a moment he imagined that it must be too hot to touch, but when he placed his hand on the hilt it was cool. He glanced at Melisandre; her faint smile was unreadable. _Another conjurer’s trick,_ he thought... but not one he had ever seen the like of before.

He grasped the sword firmly and held it before him. It had decent heft and balance, but not exactly Valyrian forged. Nothing about it seemed out of the ordinary... except for that uncanny light. 

_If nothing else, it should impress Renly,_ he thought grimly. _He’s always loved shiny things._

 

If Renly was impressed by the magic sword, it was not sufficient to turn him back from his folly.

At their farce of a parley, Ned Stark’s widow had chided them as if they were her children. But Renly was a man grown, who seemed to gleam with pride at his bald-faced treason. Stannis fumed all the way back to camp. Melisandre rode beside him in silence.

As soon as they arrived, he immediately summoned his lords, knights, and sellsword captains to his pavillion for a war council. Melisandre remained unusually silent throughout. Once, during a lull in the discussion, Ser Justin ventured to ask her if she saw victory for them in the flames. “Do not lose heart; R’hllor is with us,” was her only reply. She excused herself at dusk to light the nightfire, and returned shortly after. 

They went on late into the night. Squires brought in food and tallow candles to light the tent. Finally Stannis dismissed them all, and they filed out. He dismissed his squires as well. Devan, the most trustworthy, was given a stern order to wake him an hour before dawn. Not that he had much hope of sleep.

They could sit and discuss strategy until winter came and melted into spring. It would not change the fact that they were outnumbered five to one, and they did not have enough horse to outflank twenty thousand riders. His only hope was the fact that Renly had never seen a real battle in his life and thought of tourneys as occasions to buy fancy new armor. Still, with numbers like that it would be difficult for even Renly to blunder so badly as to allow Stannis to win. Many of Renly’s knights were green fools like himself, but he did have experienced commanders like Randyll Tarly on his side. And he still had a hundred thousand at Bitterbridge, waiting to march...

As Stannis stood frowning at the strewn-about battle plans, he became aware that he was not alone. Melisandre had remained even as the others left. He was not at all surprised that she should be so presumptuous.

“You must not give yourself to despair,” she said. “Despair is a weapon of the enemy. You are the lord’s champion.”

“Unless R’hllor can protect us from swords and pikes as easily as he protected you from poison, he may have to find himself a new champion soon.”

“I have told you, Your Grace. Renly will die. His army is rightfully yours, and will be yours.”

Stannis snorted. “Renly will die, Renly will repent his treason, now Renly will die again. It seems to me your predictions change with the wind.” Removing his gloves, he went and stood by the brazier. His departing knights had let a draft of chill night air into the pavillion. “Does your god plan to reach out and strike Renly dead in the midst of all his men? That would be something indeed.”

In truth, he was not angry with Melisandre. Perhaps he should have been; if her grand promises did turn out to be so much wind, then he would likely be riding to his death on the morrow. But he would have had to face his brother sooner or later, and Renly’s treason was not her doing. More than anything else, he was weary.

Suddenly Melisandre was at his side. The glow from the brazier set her eyes aflame. “If _you_ could strike him down,” she said, “would you?”

“I wouldn’t be riding into battle against him tomorrow if not,” he said. He could feel the warmth of her through his clothes, warmer even than the fire. She was standing too close.

“There are many men on a battlefield,” she said. “One who commands an army may slay thousands without ever staining his hands with blood.”

“Been in a lot of battles, have you?”

She smiled at that. Gently, she laid a hand on his arm. He willed himself not to flinch like before. 

“What if it were not a battlefield with thousands of men?” she said. “What if you faced Renly alone?”

“Are you suggesting that I challenge him to single combat?” he said, incredulous. “Renly may be a prancing fool, but he would have sense enough never to accept that.”

“I am asking you, Your Grace, if you would kill your brother.” She closed his right hand between two of hers and raised it before him, pointing it as if she were guiding a sword thrust through her own breast. “If you faced him, sword in hand,” she said, “could you take that sword and run him through?”

He thought of that moment during the parley when Renly had reached beneath the folds of his cloak. Stannis had reached for his sword without thinking, and had left his hand on the hilt even as Renly smiled and pulled out a peach. _One should never refuse to taste a peach, Stannis._

“I could,” Stannis said. “I would. He’s a traitor, and a traitor’s reward is death.”

Slowly, agonizingly, she lifted his hand to her mouth and pressed her burning lips to his fingers, his palm, the inside of his wrist. It seared him like a hot brand. He had to make her stop. Wrenching his arm out of her grip, he seized her roughly by the shoulders and kissed her.

Understanding bloomed in him then, like some monstrous flower. As he pulled her against him, he saw clearly for the first time the feeling that had gnawed at his edges all these months whenever he was in her presence, and it appalled him. He would end this now, send her away—out of his tent, out of his life, as far away as possible. He would tell no one, and in the morning he would ride to battle, to defeat, to death. No one would ever know. He would send her away as soon as he could speak.

Having resolved as much, he found it increasingly daunting to break the kiss and let go of her. Knowing that this one moment of indiscretion was the end of it, the only taste of her he would ever get, some part of him was desperate to draw it out as long as possible. Her slender arms around his neck could have been bands of iron for all that he was capable of disentangling himself from them.

Finally, he managed to drag his lips away from hers, though he still could not let go of her. If he let go, he felt certain that his knees would buckle and give way. “Get out,” he gasped against her ear, mortified at how weak it sounded.

“My king,” she breathed, clinging tightly to him. “I dare not leave you alone for this battle.”

“Battle?” His mind was reeling. “The battle is at dawn.”

“That battle will never come to pass. I promise you. Renly will die first.”

“You’ve made a lot of promises.” He let his arms fall to his sides, but a moment later they had wrapped themselves about her waist.

“You must trust me,” she said.

Various retorts fluttered through his mind like a startled flock of birds. _I burned the sept and the godswood. I took what little army I had and laid siege to an impregnable fortress. Is that not far enough to trust you? What more would you have me do?_ But he feared the answer. “I don’t know,” he said finally, stupidly. “I don’t know.”

“Let me prove it to you.” There was an urgency in her tone he had not heard before.

It was too bright, far too bright. The tent was flooded with the glow from dozens of candles and the flames leaping high in the brazier. He could see Melisandre clearly, every inch of her, as her red robes pooled on the dusty floor. Selyse always extinguished every lamp in her chambers before they could begin to disrobe; he was never sure if this was meant for her benefit or his. But what he did now seemed as different from what he did with Selyse as day from night.


	2. Chapter 2

He did not hurry. There was no need to hurry. Men bustled around him, paying no more mind to him than they would to a breeze.

He felt it before he saw it: a tent of green silk with gold tassels. It drew him inexorably, as if he were standing still and the tent were flying toward him. He brushed the flap aside and stepped into the flickering candlelight, past a stern woman with hair of an auburn color that he once would have called red, past a tall straw-haired knight who went on one knee behind a laughing youth in dark green armor. There. His brother. _Robert_ , he thought for a moment, before correcting himself. He’d never realized before how striking the resemblance was.

The sword in his hand weighed nothing at all when he lifted it. He heard two soft metallic thumps, as the two halves of his brother’s gorget hit the floor.

Suddenly, he was groping and stumbling in the dark. Somewhere, a woman was screaming. His feet slipped on something wet, and he heard a gurgling sound. He had to get away, but he couldn’t see where he was. He needed to return, but to where? Dragonstone? Storm’s End? King’s Landing? None of those places pulled at him as the green tent had. Now his line was cut and he was lost, drowning.

“Your Grace, Your Grace,” called a small, panicked voice, from far away. That couldn’t be meant for him. He did not feel possessed of any grace.

A shrill scraping noise of metal on metal jolted him to his senses. He found himself staring into the wide, frantic eyes of his squire.

“Stop shouting, Davos,” he muttered, waving the boy off. “I’m awake.” He realized then that he had called the son by the father’s name, but did not bother to correct himself. Sitting up, he saw that sunlight was seeping in through the gaps under the tent. “I thought I told you to wake me an hour before dawn?”

“I tried, Your Grace!” Devan cried. “I shook you and shook you, but you would not wake.”

Stannis sat on the edge of the pallet and ran his hands over his face. His limbs felt heavy and sluggish; had he been this tired when he went to sleep? His arms fell to his lap and he stared down at them for a moment, wondering why they were so clean. _There should be blood_ , he thought. He shook his head, trying to clear it of the haze of unsettling dreams.

Perhaps the boy took the look on his face for anger. “Your Grace, please forgive me!” he said unhappily. “The Lady Melisandre said you’d had a trying night…”

A cold dread seized him, and he looked up. Melisandre stood at the brazier with her back to him, pristine and unruffled in her red robes as if they had not been on the floor only a few hours ago. Was she already clothed when Devan came in? He did not want to think about the alternative.

The scraping noise was her stirring the embers in the brazier with a metal poker. Tending the fire in the morning should have been a squire’s job, but Devan was evidently too occupied with waking his king.

 

They had suggested that he sit down, but he refused. “Renly,” he said carefully, “dead?”

“Murdered, Your Grace,” Ser Justin said. “With the might of his army camped all around him. They say it was a woman that did it.”

Stannis stifled the mad impulse to glance at Melisandre behind him.

“That’s right,” Ser Godry said. “That great sow from Tarth who likes to dress up and play knight. I knew there had to be something unnatural about her.”

Stannis recalled Renly’s standard-bearer, a knight in blue armor addressed as Brienne. A woman’s name. He pictured a broad homely face with wide blue eyes and dirty straw hair. Where had he seen that face? The knight at the parley had never lifted their visor.

“No, it had to have been Lady Stark” Ser Patrek insisted. “What she-wolf wouldn’t tear out a throat or two to protect her young? Renly was as a much a threat to her son as to His Grace. She seized her chance to steal into his tent and put a knife in his heart as he slept in his bed.”

_In his bed_. Stannis felt some of the tightness in his chest dissipate. _What I saw was a dream, nothing more._

“Renly didn’t die in his sleep,” Ser Godry scoffed. “He was armored for the battle. I hear the killer did it with one clean cut—split his gorget and his throat beneath it. Could some old widow have managed that?”

“Sers,” said Melisandre. “Whoever this killer might be, they have saved thousands of our men with a single stroke. R’hllor has given us a gift along with the new day.”

As his knights murmured their agreement, Stannis felt that scraping noise again, ringing in his ears and rattling his stomach.

 

Within the hour, Lord Alester had arrived at their camp to declare House Florent for Stannis. Various stormlords followed, one after the other.

Some time during the day, Melisandre disappeared and did not resurface until it was time to light the nightfire at dusk. Perhaps she went to her tent to gaze at the flames. Stannis felt oddly relieved to have her out of sight for the time being. He had not dared to speak with her or even look at her directly, fearing that anyone who saw them would be able to guess what she had done, what he had done.

But what had he done? He’d dreamed of killing Renly… then woke to learn that Renly had been killed. Could he have done it, in his sleep? Walked across Renly’s camp amidst thousands of men, entered his tent unseen and unhindered? Ridiculous.

_I promise you. Renly will die._

What they had done was not magic. That was only a mistake, one night’s weakness. When he returned to Dragonstone, he would make amends, speak to Selyse...

But how was he meant to explain such a thing to Selyse, when he could hardly explain it to himself?

 

That night Stannis found himself in the green tent again. Everything seemed clearer this time, sharper, brighter. Catelyn Stark stood in one corner glowering at him. In another corner was Brienne of Tarth, her eyes downcast. Stannis did not turn to peer into the other corners, but he knew without having to look that Melisandre was there. He could feel her on the air.

Renly stood in the center of the tent, peach in hand, laughing. A crown encircled his brow, made from the entwined stems of white daffodils, like the ones that used to grow on the low green hills around Storm’s End. When he took a bite from the peach, the flesh inside was bright red and glistening wet.

“Look at me, brother,” Renly said. “I’m a king.” The juice ran from his mouth and down his neck and became a fountain that pooled at his feet.

_Throw that crown away_ , Stannis wanted to shout. _You look foolish. You look like a child_. But he couldn’t form the words. All he could do was scream and scream.

And then Melisandre was bending over him, her face in shadow. For a moment he cringed in terror. The red curtain of her hair brushed against his cheek; it was the scent of it that made him realize this was not part of the dream. He was in bed, in his own tent. And so was she.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“You had need of me.” Soft hands framed his face. He snatched them away.

“ _I_ will decide when I have need of you,” he said angrily, hating how his voice shook.

“Yes, Your Grace,” she said. “Would you have me leave now?”

Hesitating a moment, he studied her. She had raised her head enough that the light from the fire illuminated her features; yet what burned behind those eyes remained as obscure to him as ever.

“You’re here already,” he said finally.

“I am.”

 

It was sinful, he knew. He had about as much regard for the sanctimonious rebukes of septons as Robert did; but unlike Robert, he understood that vows were made to be honored. In the daylight, it astounded him that he could ever be so weak.

At night, however, his dreams were closer and far more real than any vows he had spoken in a sept long ago.

It was not simply that he did not like to be alone with the nightmares. Melisandre was as much a part of them as he was. It felt only natural to share them with her.

It was never dark in his tent. Devan would light a fire in the brazier every afternoon, before twilight passed into evening, and Melisandre would tend it after they sent the boy away for the night.

 

One night, as she lay alongside him, he finally managed to ask her the question that burned always in the back of his thoughts.

“What happened to Renly?”

She regarded him for long moments before she answered. “R’hllor judged him for his sin and passed sentence upon him.”

“And who carried out that sentence?”

“When a warrior takes his sword in hand and thrusts it through his enemy’s heart, who do you say slew the enemy? Was it the sword? The hand that clasped it? Or the warrior himself?”

He had no patience for riddles. “Is that what I am? A weapon to be wielded by some god?”

“No,” she said, stroking his brow and resting a hand over his eyes. “I am his weapon. You are his hand upon this earth, and he has sent me to you, for you to wield in his name.”

It seemed to Stannis that it was the hand that was supposed to reach out and take up the sword; and yet it had been Melisandre who sought him out and took him up for her god.

“But what hand was it,” he said hoarsely, “that slew Renly?”

He felt her lips at his temple. “Not yours,” she whispered.

 

The siege remained in place. Renly’s castellan, Ser Cortnay Penrose, would not raise the gates of Storm’s End to them. When Stannis rode out to inspect their blockade, she rode with him.

“The walls are higher than those around King’s Landing,” she said.

“How would you know? You’ve never been to King’s Landing. You said so before.”

“I have seen it in the flames,” she said. “A great walled city, and your brother in his green armor riding at the head of a mighty host. He smashed your army against the walls.”

He frowned. “But Renly is dead. He’ll never reach the city or lead an army into battle.”

“He never will,” she agreed. “Nevertheless, the vision was true, or would have been, had we not stopped it from coming to pass.”

He considered this for a moment. “How can you know that a vision is true if it never comes to pass?”

She smiled at him. “All visions are true, Your Grace,” she said. “The visions come from R’hllor, after all. One who, walking, comes to a fork in the path may choose one path over the other. Yet the untrod path is no less real.”

When he thought on it that way, what she did was not so unusual. Going into a battle, one had to try to see all the ways the battle could turn, and steer it on a path to victory. It was only that Melisandre could see farther down the paths than others. She was a light with which to peer into all the darkened corners where death and defeat might lurk.

They rode closer to the castle. He had spent more than enough time staring down from those battlements to know what distance was beyond an archer’s shot. They were close enough to hear the wind humming against the face of the walls, failing to find purchase on the smooth stone. Melisandre continued to study them. “These walls are old,” she said.

“Oldest in the seven kingdoms, to hear some tell it.” A distant memory came, unbidden, of sitting on his mother’s lap with Robert at her feet. “They say Durran Godsgrief built the castle in the dawn days, to spite the gods of sea and sky. An old wives’ tale,” he added, perhaps too quickly.

“Old tales endure when they contain truths,” she said, “just as old walls endure when they contain magic. The spells that laid these stones will not be easily passed.”

_Passed by who? R’hllor?_ It seemed that Durran was still giving grief to gods some eight thousand years later. “A hundred-foot wall is not easily passed by anyone, magic or no,” he said. “There’s a reason Storm’s End has never been taken by force.”

“The castle will be yours, Your Grace,” she said. “Your brother’s bastard as well. Once R’hllor shows me the way to surpass the wall.” From the way she squinted up at it, he would have guessed she was thinking of scaling the wall herself.

“Leaving aside R’hllor,” he said, “I know one who could take you _underneath_ the wall.”

 

By the time of their next fruitless parley with Cortnay Penrose, Davos had returned from his mission, spreading word of Cersei’s infamy up north. Stannis took him aside to explain what they needed from him. Davos would do as he was bid, although the look in his eyes suggested that he might have preferred to lose what remained of his fingers.

Later that afternoon, Stannis sat through yet another useless war council, attended by neither Davos nor Melisandre. Ser Guyard had loudly declared his relief that they could finally get down to the real business of war strategy without having to mind themselves in a lady’s presence. Others, emboldened by the priestess’ absence, took up the complaints that had only been whispers before. The fools were sorely mistaken if they thought they would impress him with their forthrightness when he knew that they would go right back to their weak pretenses of courtesy once Melisandre returned. Cortnay Penrose was a traitor serving a dead usurper, but at least Ser Cortnay had the courage to throw insults in his face rather than whisper them behind turned backs.

Insults were only words, and words were about the sum of what these lords had offered him so far.

 

That night, Stannis walked the corridors of Storm’s End for the first time in years.

He felt no bitterness or sorrow, only calm, as he passed nervous guards in the courtyard and mounted the steps to the tower. Up and up he and climbed, untiring, knowing for a certainty that someone was waiting for him at the top.

 

He awoke, shaking and gasping, then fighting panic as Melisandre failed to appear. She was usually the first thing he saw upon waking. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyelids, willing his heart to stop hammering. She’d gone with Davos, he reminded himself—gone and left him alone for the night.

He had sent for her earlier that evening, after the council broke up and the nightfire was lit. She had come to his tent wrapped in a heavy hooded oxblood cloak that fell to her ankles and made her look formless, a dark shroud standing upright. He’d known before he pulled it off her that she wore nothing underneath—nothing but the red-gold choker at her throat, warm and pulsing like part of her own skin.

He opened his eyes and tried to focus on the tent’s ceiling, the way the shadows fell across it. Even the light seemed dimmer than normal; the fire had burned low without her to tend it. He rolled onto his side to look at the brazier, wondering if he should call for Devan. A thick red cloak was draped over a chair, dripping water on the floor.

Startled, he turned in the other direction. Melisandre lay there on her side next to him, naked save for the ruby choker. She had not even covered herself with the blanket.

He swallowed a childish surge of resentment that she had slept so peacefully through his nightmare. When he looked closer, she did not look particularly peaceful; the usual smooth mask of her face was furrowed and tense. He wasn’t sure why the sight of it troubled him, until he realized that in the weeks she had been sharing his tent, he had never once seen her asleep. She slept after he did, he supposed, and woke before he did. That was what made the most sense… but he no longer felt certain of anything that made sense. Regardless, whatever she had done under Storm’s End with Davos must have tired her out beyond her usual limits.

Her hair looked damp at the ends. One long tendril had come loose and fallen across her face. It would have been easy to reach out and brush it away. He stretched out his hand toward her face, but then laid it on her upper arm instead. She stirred; her eyelids twitched, but remained shut.

“Is it done?” he said softly.

“Is what done, Your Grace?” she murmured.

He frowned. Was she mocking him? Or was she still asleep? Unwittingly, he tightened his grip on her arm. Her eyes fluttered open and fixed on him. She gave a shaky sigh and, with one smooth movement, gathered him to her and wrapped her arms tight around him.

The lock of hair that he had failed to brush away from her face now tickled his ear. Her usual smoky scent was mixed with the scent of the sea.

It was probably not long before dawn. Devan or Bryen Farring or someone would come soon to tell him that Cortnay Penrose was dead; it would not do to be seen like this. He ought to get up. Instead, he closed his eyes and listened to the whisper of her breathing.

 

Elwood Meadows opened the gates to them before midday. Ser Cortnay’s body had been found at the foot of the tower, beneath the wide window of his chamber. His door had been locked. It was supposed that he had thrown himself from the tower in the night.

A bastard boy of eleven was brought before Stannis. The boy greeted him with all the stiff courtesy of a highborn lord, and with Robert’s eyes staring out of Robert’s face.

With the castle fallen to him, Stannis could hold his war councils in a great hall instead of a tent.

“Bad enough to have her bear your standard at parley, but to take her into battle?”

“A battlefield is no fit place for a woman.”

“Perhaps... perhaps it would be better for the Lady Melisandre to remain behind.”

“Perhaps it would be better for _you_ to remain behind, my lord,” said Stannis peevishly, “and you, Lord Varner, and Ser Guyard, if you find it easier to attack Lady Melisandre than the enemy.”

Varner blanched and Ser Guyard shook his head. Lord Bar Emmon sputtered, “I only meant that she would be better able to pray for our victory...”

The braying mules had taken up their complaints again, more insistently this time. Davos sat in a distant corner, saying nothing, though Stannis could tell he was listening intently. The onion knight had a bold tongue when they were alone, but still hesitated after all these years to speak in the presence of highborn lords and knights. There were times when Stannis wanted to ask him what he had seen, what Melisandre had shown him, there in the tunnels beneath Storm’s End. The urge was usually fleeting, however. It was better not to know.

“Enough of this,” Stannis said. “We’re here to discuss King’s Landing, not Lady Melisandre.”

Lord Bryce Caron raised his voice. “Your Grace,” he said, “if the sorceress is with us, afterward men will say it was her victory, not yours.”

All at once, Stannis recalled one of his more bitter arguments with Robert. In his anger, he had brought up his defense of Storm’s End against Mace Tyrell and Paxter Redwyne’s forces while Robert was off warring on Rhaegar. He still remembered the irritated wave of his brother’s hand. _“You sat and ground your teeth for five and ten months. The victory was Ned’s, not yours.”_ He did not speak to Robert for almost a year after that.

Stannis was suddenly aware of the hush in the room. All eyes were on him.

“They’ll say that, will they?” he said guardedly.

“They say it already,” Caron replied. “They whisper that you bade her use sorcery against Renly, because you could not defeat him in open battle. Of course _we_ know it for nonsense…”

_Do we?_ thought Stannis, grinding his teeth.

“…but they whisper it all the same. If you take the priestess into battle, they will say you feared to go without her. They will say you owe your crown to her spells.”

 

“Out with it then,” he said, the wind snatching at his words. “You must have seen it in your flames.”

“One who marks his place in a book may open it any time thereafter and find the same page, with the same words written on it. If he seeks a different page, he may turn the pages until he finds the right one. This is not so when reading the flames.”

“No? Well and good. I don’t need you to read books for me. Victory or defeat?”

She turned from him and gazed down at the nightfire burning in the bailey, as if searching for her answers there. At that height, it seemed no more than a candle.“R’hllor has not made it clear to me yet,” she said at last.

“If you can’t even tell me that much, what use do you expect to be in a battle?” Perhaps that was harsh. But he did not have the time or will to worry about bruised feelings, from her or from anyone. He’d assumed she would understand. “You’ve done your part; now leave me to mine.”

“My part cannot be done while the war is still unwon.”

Having glimpsed her troubled face in sleep, he knew enough to recognize that something was troubling her now. Had she seen something in the flames after all? “Are you saying it’s defeat if I don’t take you? Is that what you see?”

“No,” she sighed. “I have not seen that.”

“What then?”

“I have said. The outcome is not clear to me.”

He turned to study the dark waters of the bay and the silhouettes of his anchored fleet. Tomorrow they would set sail, while he would ride with their mounted troops up the Kingsroad, to the bank of the Blackwater Rush.

“You’ve been telling me all along that I would win the throne if I did this or that,” he said. “I’ve done everything you said. And now you say you’re no surer of my victory than before.”

“You will win your throne,” she insisted.

“Yes. With ships and cavalry. With catapults, scorpions, and rams.” No one sang songs about how he had smashed the Ironborn at Fair Isle; not the way they sang about the Battle of the Bells or the Trident. He could never win friends and allies the way Robert could. But he could win battles. This time, he had the men. He had the ships.

“My king,” she said, “I have not come with you this far only to leave you at the decisive moment. My place is at your side.”

“Your place is where I tell you to go,” he said flatly, staring out at the sea. “I am telling you to go to Dragonstone.”


	3. Chapter 3

The wide courtyard was empty save for the nightfire burning unattended. Stannis strode across, with his squire and Alester Florent dogging his heels. Outside the Stone Drum, a lone guard goggled at him, as if seeing a man returned from the dead.

“Your Grace,” said the guard. “We were expecting you at the main gate. Queen Selyse and Ser Axell are waiting for you there.”

Stannis had suspected as much; it was precisely why he had gone around and entered through the postern. “I’m going up,” he said. “Alone.”

“Your Grace,” said Lord Alester urgently, “the Lannisters may want to—”

“The Lannisters have what they want.”

“But surely, we must discuss—”

“Leave me be.” Davos should have been his Hand, instead of this pompous fool. Why did he never name Davos his Hand? He had wanted to, from the moment he took up his crown. That door was now shut to him forever. “If you want to make yourself useful, have Pylos see to the injured. This one as well.” He jerked his finger toward Devan, who went even paler than he was already.

“Your Grace,” said Devan, “please allow me to fetch Maester Pylos to attend you first.”

“Go,” Stannis barked. “I won’t repeat myself.” 

In truth, neither of them had any wounds that could be tended by a maester; but at least this way he would be spared the boy’s pleading eyes. His youngest squire had not strayed from his side once during the battle, or since. The Lyseni sailors had praised the boy’s valor and steadfastness. Stannis suspected, rather, that Devan clung to his duty so as not to dwell on the horrors he had seen. Perhaps he looked to his king for some reassurance that his brothers had not died in vain, or for some of the words of solace that he would never again hear from his father. But Stannis had none to offer. There were no words to comfort a young boy who had watched his family die.

“I’m going up,” he said again, turning back to the guard. “No one is to disturb me. No one.” He glared pointedly in Lord Alester’s direction. “And have someone fetch Melisandre to meet me in the painted table chamber, at once.”

The guard looked dumbfounded. “The Lady Melisandre? Your Grace, she’s—”

“Just do it. Now.” If the lackwit thought she would be asleep at this hour, he was mistaken. And even if she was, Stannis did not care.

He stomped past the guard and ascended the steps. Up and up he climbed, untiring. As he crested the last round of stairs, he saw that the chamber was lit from within.

Silhouetted against the roaring hearthfire at the back of the room, Melisandre stood with her back to him, so still that for a moment he wondered if she could have fallen asleep standing up. Slowly, she turned and regarded him. He experienced a moment of vertigo where he felt as if she had been the one to summon him, and he had answered that summons.

The roiling torrent of anger and bitterness that had driven him along the whole voyage back from King’s Landing suddenly fell still, as within the eye of a storm. The accusations that had run through his mind over and over fled from him, and he could think of nothing to say. “You knew I would come here?” he managed finally.

“I waited,” she said. “I have waited for you longer than you could ever imagine.”

An answer that claimed much and answered little—answered nothing at all. No more than he would expect from her. The eye passed; the fury of the storm resumed.

“You saw it,” he said. “Renly in his green armor, you said, leading a mighty host, to smash my army against the walls of King’s Landing. You said that Renly was dead and that it would never come to pass.” He crossed the floor, closing the distance between them. “It did come to pass. Not Renly, but his armor. And the Tyrell host.”

“Yes,” she said. “The flames have revealed it to me.”

“You knew what would happen, and you didn’t tell me.” He would kill her if she admitted to it. He would kill her if she denied it. He was already a murderer, a kinslayer, a craven who lived while better men burned and died.

“You left me behind,” she said.

He seized her by the arm and dragged her forward. He had seen her cheat death once; he wondered if she could do it again.

“How could I have told you?” she said, gazing up at him evenly. “By the time I saw clearly what the vision meant, it was too late. No raven or ship would have reached you in time.”

“You didn’t tell me because I left you behind.”

Her eyes widened. “No.”

“Thought you’d teach me a lesson. Is that the measure of it?”

“I have not held anything back from you, Your Grace.”

He knew that wasn’t true. After all these months, he barely knew the first thing about her. Only that she had come from Asshai, and even that could have been a lie. She held herself more closely than an oyster. If he cracked her open, he did not know if he would find flesh and blood or merely a smoke-filled hollow.

“The wildfire that burned my ships,” he said, “and the chain that barred their escape. The Imp’s doing, it’s said. Did you see that as well?”

“I did, after you had left.”

“That boy Devan had four brothers in this battle. They burned up in an instant... along with their father. You remember Ser Davos.”

“I would have saved them if I could.”

“Oh, you would have? I suppose the fault is mine, then? Everything would have gone well had I only taken you into battle?”

“I do not know how the battle would have gone,” she said. “I may have erred in my reading before—”

“You may have,” he agreed, tightening his grip on her forearm. She did not squirm, but allowed herself to be pushed backwards.

“—but had I been there, I could have told you about the attack from the rear, and the green fire, and the chain.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I did not know before.”

“You don’t know any of it!” he roared. “You’re only guessing. Putting on your mummer’s show.”

Her back came up against the stone of the mantel. Behind her, the flames crackled and hissed.

“I know the truth of what I have seen,” she said quietly. “I know that if we lose this war, those who have died now will be the fortunate ones.”

“Are you so eager to die, then?” he said darkly.

“With what I have seen, how could I fear for my own life?” She laid her free hand over his. “How could I fear to be pierced by swords, spears, daggers? To be drowned, bludgeoned, flayed, dashed apart, crushed, throttled, burned alive, torn limb from limb...”

“Shut up,” he said, alarmed. “Shut up.”

“Such deaths as these are nothing compared to what is coming.”

The fervor with which she said it made him feel ill. His own grave error became hideously plain to him. The truth of it was that she was no sorceress or seer; no god had sent her. She was not even a charlatan to have played him false. She was only some madwoman who had drifted over the sea, speaking nonsense that chanced to come true from time to time. 

It was he—he was the one who had chosen to put stock in her ravings, who had staked his crown and his honor on them, staked his men’s lives on them. 

Everything had been his own doing from the start.

The enormity of it engulfed him. He released her and reeled backwards. She had not shrunk from his rage, but at the sight of him now she suddenly looked apprehensive. Without a word, he turned his back on her and walked toward the stairs.

“My king,” she said. 

He broke into a run.

Down he fled, down and down. Thinking on it now, it was so blindingly obvious that it took his breath away. The things she claimed were so ridiculous that no charlatan would venture to pass them for truth. No one in their right mind would believe them. What kind of sad idiot god would choose Stannis Baratheon as a champion?

He quailed at the sound of strange laughter echoing in the stairwell—a sudden sniggering burst followed by breathless wheezing chuckles that seemed to come from above and below at once. It was no comfort to him to realize that he was its source.

He heard Melisandre pursuing him. He halted for a moment, watching for her. When she rounded a bend in the stair and saw him standing there, she froze, as if he were some wounded animal that would attack or flee if she came too close. That, too, made him laugh. The sound felt strange and ugly in his throat.

“You never did say why it had to be me,” he said.

She eyed him warily. “You are the Lord’s chosen—”

“But why choose ME??” The last word rang harshly against the stone walls.

She seemed to hesitate, and he felt a sick thrill of vindication. _She has no answer!_ “R’hllor’s reasons are not ours to know,” he heard her say at last, but he had already turned from her and plunged on down the stairs.

When he came to the dungeons, he found them empty. He recalled vaguely that Lord Sunglass and two of Ser Hubard Rambton’s sons were meant to have been there, but they were not now. A forgotten oil lamp was burning by a guardpost; he snatched it up and hurried on.

 

Once when Shireen was six years old, she had gone missing. Stannis remembered it well. He had arrived on one of his increasingly rare visits home from King’s Landing, only to find Dragonstone in an uproar. For almost a full day and night they searched the castle and gardens, and even the surrounding cliffs and the sea. 

Selyse, livid in her panic, had several servants whipped who were the last to have seen the child. She even threatened to have them thrown in the cells. Her ruthlessness turned out to be a blessing. A guard descending to prepare the empty dungeons heard the singsong voice of Patchface drifting up from behind an old disused door. It had been left by the Targaryens, set in the stone where the foundations of the castle seamlessly melted into the mountain. Behind it was a narrow shaft of stairs leading deep underground. 

They found Shireen sitting on the steps far below, sobbing quietly, with only her fool’s queer songs for comfort. She had slipped and hurt her ankle while exploring, and her little candle had gone out. If not for Patchface, she would have been all alone in that pitch blackness. Afterward, Selyse forbade Shireen from going down past the first cellar.

 

In the lowest level of the dungeons, he found the door where he remembered it. He had not meant to seek it out, but his feet had carried him there nonetheless.

Now that he was here, there was nowhere to go. Melisandre was not far behind; she would be upon him in moments. He would have to turn back and face her, and Selyse, and Shireen, and Ser Axell, Lord Alester, Devan, Davos, Renly, Robert.

He kicked at the door. It groaned in protest and budged open a crack; having lain so long against the smooth Valyrian rock, it was reluctant to move. He tried again, throwing his weight against it.

“Wait,” he heard Melisandre call somewhere behind him. “You will—” Whatever words followed were drowned out by a crash as the door finally swung open. Without a backward glance, he flung himself heedlessly into that dark shaft.

He ran until there was nothing to be heard but his own crashing footsteps and heavy breathing. No other footsteps; she had not dared to follow him. One hand gripped the lamp as he ran, while his other hand slid along the wall of the passage. It was warm to the touch. The steps were surprisingly smooth and even, meticulously carved by the Conqueror’s ancestors for some unknown purpose. 

His own purpose was no clearer to him than theirs. His feet could only go forward.

One step, less than half a finger’s width shorter than it ought to have been, made him miss his footing and pitch over backwards. For a moment all his despairing, oppressive thoughts were banished in a bright flash of panic. Dropping the oil lamp and flinging his arms out behind him, he slid down two steps and sat hard on the third.

When the echoes of his crash died away, the only sound left in the passage was his ragged breathing. He had not heard the lamp shatter or hit the steps; he knew only that he was now submerged in darkness. 

Apart from a tender spot on his elbow that was likely a bruise, he was unhurt. But there seemed little point in getting up. He sat where he found himself, leaning over his knees, feeling the weight of the castle and the mountain above.

In that silence, before long, he heard careful, unhurried footsteps. A light bloomed in the passage. Evidently she had troubled herself to find a torch. He saw the stone walls around him, the steps continuing down past his feet. Below, he saw the broken remains of the oil lamp. He sat and stared past it, into the shadows, not wanting to turn and look at her as she approached. The torchlight hurt his eyes.

Her footsteps halted. He could feel her gaze burning between his shoulder blades.

“You wish to know,” said Melisandre, “why it must be you, and no one else?”

He did not wish to know anything. Knowing had become an unbearable burden. He was part of the steps, still and silent.

He heard her set the torch down carefully. She stepped around him and stood on the next step below his feet, facing him. He continued to stare at some uncertain point ahead. 

“Had Renly not died that night,” she said, “what would have happened?”

He did not answer. Then her hands were at either side of his face, tipping it firmly upward.

“What would have happened?”

“Battle,” he said hoarsely, “at daybreak…”

“You would have fought?”

“Yes...”

“Could you have won?”

“No.” Did she want him to say he would have died without her? His life did not seem much of a boon to him at the moment.

“Why fight, then?”

_I don’t know._ “I had to,” he said. “I had to… I couldn’t…” There was a lump in his throat that made it difficult to get the words out.

Her hands and her eyes kept him fixed in place. She leaned in close, though there was no one to overhear them, not even her god.

“One who fights not for glory, nor honor, nor love, nor hatred, nor revenge, nor promise of reward, nor even hope of victory—one who fights on, simply because he must—because to let the darkness go unchallenged would be unthinkable—the reborn Azor Ahai can only be such a man.” Her voice was a whisper, a closely-held secret. “I have seen it… And when I met you, I knew it to be true.”

The light behind him flickered upon her face; its radiance stung his eyes. He felt them water and spill over. He was teetering on a narrow precipice, over a bottomless chasm, and she was the only handhold; he clutched at her frantically. There was a noise coming up through his chest that threatened to choke him or shake him to pieces. Her arms encircled him and held him together.

 

When at last she picked up the torch again, she did not lead him back the way they had come. Instead, they continued down into the mountain. He did not even question it. 

After a while, the stone steps grew rougher and then disappeared altogether. The narrow passages opened up and merged with natural caves, and the steep incline of the path became a gentler slope, though it continued to bear them downward.

They passed into a large cavern. The black walls glittered with flashes of red, green, purple. She held the torch aloft and stood looking about them for a long enough moment that he felt the need to say something.

“Dragonglass,” he told her. “The whole island is riddled with it.”

“Frozen fire,” she said, wondering.

“A pretty name for a worthless rock. It’s too sharp for building, and weapons fashioned from it are too brittle to stand up to steel. The Targaryens sat on it for hundreds of years without ever finding a use for it.”

She touched the nearest wall, unmindful of the jagged edges. “There is a purpose for everything,” was all she said.

 

When the torch finally guttered out, they were plunged into inky blackness. Her hand was dry when it slipped into his. He was long past the point of feeling foolish at being led by the hand like a child. 

Slowly, he picked his way along, one hand in hers and the other feeling along the wall. Once or twice he stumbled and nearly brought the both of them down. Weariness would have made him clumsy even if he could see where he was going. He marveled that her steps seemed no less sure than they had been in the torchlight. 

“You’ve been down here before?” he asked, though he knew that was absurd.

She shook her head—how did he know that she shook her head? “R’hllor has shown me,” she said.

 

The darkness weighed heavily upon them; the air was thick with it. He could not make out his own hand in front of his face. But he could see her, faintly, as she walked ahead of him. Perhaps he imagined it. Perhaps she had been burned into his eyes, as when one looks away after staring at a candle flame. But instead of fading like the candle’s image, she seemed to grow ever more distinct. 

Some passages sloped gently, while others were almost as steep as the stairs. All led downward, to the firey heart of the mountain. Maester Cressen had said there were no records of that fire having spewed forth since the Targaryens first built the castle. But it continued to burn, as evidenced by the heat that warmed Dragonstone’s dungeons and grew ever more stifling as they descended. Stannis wondered if they would be able to lay eyes on the flames, or if they would be burnt to ash before they could come near enough.

The two of them would die down here, he realized. Perhaps one day the volcano would erupt, the mountain would burst open and lay bare all its secrets. Perhaps then some descendant of the Mad King’s two whelps who had escaped him and fled across the sea would return, to search for the remains of their ancestors. They would find his bones here, and hers. He was not certain if she truly ever slept, or whether the light that showed through her skin was that of a god or a demon or his own delusion; but he knew that she had bones. He felt them under his fingers when he squeezed her hand.

When he stumbled again and she moved to catch him, it was easy to pull her down to the floor with him. The rock beneath them was almost too warm to touch, yet she was warmer still. 

It was the first and only time he ever lay with her in the dark.

 

He woke to the sound of waves battering the shore. A faint breeze touched his forehead. He opened his eyes. Less than a hundred yards from where they lay, morning sunlight was streaming in through the wide mouth of the cave.

_That’s not possible,_ he thought. _We walked downhill for hours and hours. We were deep underground. No wind, no waves, no starlight. We could not have been this close to the way out._

Melisandre sat up beside him. He expected her to offer an explanation. Perhaps some platitude about how the Lord of Light is everywhere, makes all things possible. Instead she stared at the cave mouth and said nothing. When she met his eyes, her expression was solemn. 

Was this what she had expected all along? Or had she been wandering as lost as he? He could only guess. In the daylight, her mask was back in place.

Standing up, he reached out to help her to her feet. She took the hand he offered, though she seemed less shaky than he. Together, they walked out into the light.


End file.
